## The Question of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat

The transition from class society to non-class, classless society.

Three basic groups, classes: the exploited, the exploiters, the middle strata; workers, capitalists, petty bourgeoisie.

How to make the transition? The "majority" in general from different classes?

Not class struggle, but majority?

The continuation of class struggle in a different form: the ruling class (the exploited; the proletariat, and not the exploited in general).

The middle strata, vacillating, led.

Capitalists (the exploiting), suppressed, their resistance is suppressed.

The dictatorship of the proletariat as a new form of class struggle, of the transition (the transitional stage of society) from capitalism to socialism. Two basic questions that arise further:

α) The proletariat as a majority of the population, as a condition, i.e., the dictatorship of the proletariat is permissible only when the proletariat constitutes the majority of the population.

β) Forms of class struggle in this particular stage. Old forms or new ones? What is the novelty?

* On point α. — Ed.

** In the English manner? — Ed.